Free Republic

Charred fragments found in 170,000-year-old ashes in a cave in southern Africa are the earliest roasted root vegetables yet found. The finding suggest the real "paleo diet" included lots of roasted vegetables rich in carbohydrates, similar to modern potatoes. "I think people were eating a very balanced diet, a combination of carbohydrates and proteins," says team leader Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. In 2016, her team found dozens of bits of charcoal in an ash layer in the Border cave in South Africa. This ash layer is what is left from the fires of...

Modern culture emerged in southern Africa at least 44,000 years ago, more than 20,000 years earlier than anthropologists had previously believed, researchers reported Monday. That blossoming of technology and art occurred at roughly the same time that modern humans were migrating from Africa to Europe, where they soon displaced Neanderthals. Many of the characteristics of the ancient culture identified by anthropologists are still present in hunter-gatherer cultures of Africa today, such as the San culture of southern Africa, the researchers said. The new evidence was provided by an international team of researchers excavating at an archaeological site called Border Cave...